And the Enterprise in The Immunity Syndrome was essentially swimming inside a giant amoeba, certainly a liquid environment roughly analogous to water.

The functioning within a 1G environment is slightly more problematic, until you realize that a starship is travelling at warp velocities, and has survived close proximity to far more intense gravitationally induced stresses, to the point of surviving time travel.

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Can't really use Fluidic Space as an example, because we really have no idea of the pressure and viscosity of that particular fluid.

But it probably still wouldn't have any trouble, at least not if it moved slowly. Any ship that can survive the streses of a) skirting the event horizon of a black hole and b) getting blasted out of said black hole by a massive antimatter explosion probably isn't going to have any issues with water pressure... so long as it doesn't dive very far.

Does anyone know if NASA uses (or rather, used) submersion tests in order to determine the structural integrity of things like shuttles and Apollo capsules?

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They use space suits when submerged in water for training for Zero-G missions.

If present-day spacesuits can easily deal with a fluid environment, then the extemes and rigours of warp travel, interstellar environments, Ion storms, extreme gravity (such as a "black star" or black hole), Quasar-like objects (The Galileo Seven) and giant amoebas among other strange, unpredictable situations, taking a trip in a Class-M planetary ocean body should not be too much of a stretch.

It should also be noted that the ship is known to survive extremely low orbital flight, as Captain Christopher and some US Air Force personnel can attest.

This kind of situation would likely prompt scotty to worry about the effects on his "Poor Bairns".

Not sure as to how/why technology would be more advanced in the Alternate Reality, but I defer to writer/producer intent regarding the Alternate Reality splitting of Stardate 2233.04.

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I never said Nero's incursion didn't cause a timeline split, I just raised the possibility that there might have been earlier splits that had already diverged from what we call the "prime" timeline. Nothing in the last Trek film contradicts that possibility and quite a few things support it. Of course, only Spock Prime would know for sure.

That's the way I look at the new timeline. Before the singularity that the Narada emerges from begins forming we're in the Prime timeline (Spock's birth in the deleted scenes of Trek '09 also happens in the original timeline on stardate 2230.06)....the moment the singularity begins to appear we're in the Abrams timeline. Everything diverges from that moment.

That means that the uniforms seen on the Kelvin crew are what the Prime timeline uniforms also looked like until at least 2233 and George Kirk was an officer aboard the ship in both timelines.

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Except a lot of basic technology apparently took a giant leap backward in the Prime timeline subsequent to 2233 if everything was the same up until then. I don't just mean it didn't advance as quickly, it went backwards, i.e. graphical computer interfaces and touch-screen displays. Yes, of course this is merely the cinematic expression of a half-century difference between the making of TOS and the current movies, but if you want an in-universe way of explaining it, an earlier point of divergence might do it.

Plus I just think it would be cool if the NuTrek timeline was actually our own future, since the Prime timeline no longer can be.

They use space suits when submerged in water for training for Zero-G missions.

If present-day spacesuits can easily deal with a fluid environment,

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Not quite. The suits that NASA uses in the zero-gravity tank are made of specific fabrics and metals to withstand the continued use in water. Only the shape, weight, and resistance factors are mimicked to help train the astronauts.

And the Enterprise in The Immunity Syndrome was essentially swimming inside a giant amoeba, certainly a liquid environment roughly analogous to water.

The functioning within a 1G environment is slightly more problematic, until you realize that a starship is travelling at warp velocities, and has survived close proximity to far more intense gravitationally induced stresses, to the point of surviving time travel.

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Also in TOS they had an entire city floating on antigravity. They were impressed but not flabbergasted by it. Also in TNG they showed Galaxy class ships being build on Mars

"Genesis device" - a missile that magically creates an oasis of flora and fauna literately out of ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, in a matter of minutes... No one flinches.

A starship designed to operate in vacuum and traverse huge distances by bending the very fabric of space gets submerged under water... "Blasphemy! Jihad! Behead the infidel!"

Trekkies <3

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Yea. We can make Submarines today, and they don't seem to undergo the level of stress as launching a shuttle into orbit. Surely Traveling at Warp 9 or better has got to put more stress on a ship than being submerged in water???

And the Enterprise in The Immunity Syndrome was essentially swimming inside a giant amoeba, certainly a liquid environment roughly analogous to water.

The functioning within a 1G environment is slightly more problematic, until you realize that a starship is travelling at warp velocities, and has survived close proximity to far more intense gravitationally induced stresses, to the point of surviving time travel.

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Also in TOS they had an entire city floating on antigravity. They were impressed but not flabbergasted by it. Also in TNG they showed Galaxy class ships being build on Mars

They copied Star Trek: Insurrection. Did anyone care then? Or is hiding a village-sized holoship from the natives underwater somehow okay, but doing the same with the Enterprise not?

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Considering there's a pretty big size difference between the two... Which is my problem, the Enterprise is huge, even the TOS Kirk Enterprise/Movie Enterprise. IIRC schematic put the Abrams Enterprise as bigger than the -D. Which is, scientifically speaking, 'Utterly Mother Fucking Huge!"

Nor is it the most aerodynamic shape, but the Enterprise should barely be able to not fall apart under its own weight in an atmosphere, let alone be underwater.

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The holoship was the size of the entire Ba'ku village! And it was the shape of a brick!

The Enterprise is not some tin can in space. It goes faster than the speed of light, it flies through gas giants, space amoebas, nebulas. It falls into black holes, wormholes, black stars, gets hit by antimatter warheads almost routinely. And you think some H2O is beyond it's abilities?

Except a lot of basic technology apparently took a giant leap backward in the Prime timeline subsequent to 2233 if everything was the same up until then. I don't just mean it didn't advance as quickly, it went backwards, i.e. graphical computer interfaces and touch-screen displays. Yes, of course this is merely the cinematic expression of a half-century difference between the making of TOS and the current movies, but if you want an in-universe way of explaining it, an earlier point of divergence might do it.

Plus I just think it would be cool if the NuTrek timeline was actually our own future, since the Prime timeline no longer can be.

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I'll never get how some fans can accept a new Kirk and Spock but balk at the Enterprise herself being recast, so to speak. It's the same future through different eyes.

And we already got one unbelievable techonological hike explained away in-universe as a "refit" in 1979. This time the writers wave their hands and say "scans of Nero's ship"

I'll never get how some fans can accept a new Kirk and Spock but balk at the Enterprise herself being recast, so to speak. It's the same future through different eyes.

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I'm not balking at anything. I might have made some different stylistic choices here and there but I'm basically fine with the "recasting" of the ship.

However, the entire plot of the last Trek film was built around the idea of rebooting the franchise while providing an in-universe rationalization for the reboot. I'm only doing the same thing, speculating that one explanation for all the other changes is that the timeline actually diverged from the Prime timeline a lot earlier than Nero. As I said, it's just a pet theory for my own amusement, but I think it's foolish for people to run around and declare absolutely that everything was exactly the same until Nero came along when that could go out the window with a single line of dialogue in the next movie. Not saying it will, but it could.